Thunder Thighs

I realize how fast the time goes by when the cuckoo clock goes off every half hour. Also, when I realize that my baby is already almost six months old. She was just born!

Sadie spit up in Bill's mouth a few minutes ago. A lot. She was laughing so cute, too. He stopped playing with her after that.

And she pooped all over me earlier. But not in my mouth.

We were sitting in Sacrament Meeting the other day. Carter sneezed a GIANT sneeze. I looked over at him. He had strings of snot hanging out. It was so disgusting. In a very serious and quiet voice, he calmly said, "Darn it." Then he got tissues out to clean it up. I started laughing until I had tears coming out of my eyes when I kept thinking about his calm "darn it" with no expression in his face or voice.

Avery made it all the way across the monkey bars at school today. Her last day of school is tomorrow.

It was embarrassing for me when I measured myself for a fitness challenge that I am about to begin. My thigh is only one inch smaller than my waist was when I got married.

Darn it.

Sadie also has chubby thighs right now. I love it... on her...

I am not kissing Bill tonight.

It's Raining, It's Pouring, Someone is Snoring....

Well, it is raining so hard right now, and it's a little hard to sleep.

Avery asked me today, "Mom, when you were a little kid, was milk already invented?" When I said that I did drink milk when I was young, she went on, "Well, were lights already invented?" "Yes," I replied, "Lights were already invented for over a hundred years before I was born. And TV was even invented before I was born." "Whoa. I didn't know that," she said with her eyes as wide as... I don't know, really huge eyes. She had been reading some book that talked about how things used to be a long time ago, like before even pioneer times. Apparently, I am old enough that she thought I would know first hand what it was like.

Also, we got her a chapter book earlier this evening. Bill looked in on her to tuck her back into her bed after she was asleep. Her bookmark was on page seventy-six! She's only five, and she's a little (maybe a lot) hyper-active. I would have bought her books like this one a long time ago if I had known that they would hold her interest so well. What are some good little girl books?

My brother put up some pictures from our trip to visit him. Some of them are similar to our pictures, but some of them are different, so if you want to look at his blog, you can see it at http://butlergermanchocolate.blogspot.com. He is funny, eh.

I Have (Almost) Big Kids

It's weird when you suddenly realize that the reality in your mind is no longer actual reality. For example, Preston was always so tall and a little chubby. But he's just not anymore. He's just an average height, and he's pretty skinny. If you look at him from behind, you can see that his head is wider than his bum. Granted, he does have a giant noggin. And Sadie. Well, she's not a skinny little baby anymore. She's got rolls on her thighs and dimples in her elbows. And yesterday, when Carter saw a picture of Avery as a baby, he thought it was Sadie, and Avery was CHUNKY! (Sadie doesn't have a roll line around her wrist yet, so she's not quite like Avery, but she's getting there.) And Carter. He's not a little kid anymore. His feet are almost as big as mine. They will be as big as mine by the end of this year at the latest. And Avery doesn't really play with little girl toys anymore. (She's still little enough to; she just wants to draw and read and play games.) Plus, she's as big as Preston now. I guess the good thing is that our older kids can all ride the fun roller coasters now.

But I'm not ready for that. And my blog is a lot more boring without little kids saying funny things all the time. My big kids say funny things once in a while, but it's just not the same. I guess it might pick up again soon, with Sadie being the funny star. She's talking to me right now, telling me she's bored. So, I'll go make funny/weird faces at her and talk like an old man or in a super high pitch to make her laugh. Her laughter makes my humiliation worth it.

Vacations and Opposable Thumbs

I have questions. You've got answers. I hope.

1. Sadie does not realize that she has opposable thumbs. Is this normal for a five-month-old? About fifty percent of the time she uses her thumbs just like her other fingers, facing the same way. It looks weird. Have your babies done this?

2. I love to plan trips and travel. Where would you go if money was not a concern? Where would you go with a small budget? I want ideas. And I am curious about you all since most people that read my blog are friends or family members. (Does anyone even read my blog that I don't know?)

3. Do your kids get as excited as Avery was to bring her lunch for the first time to school? She had a field trip, and she probably talked about her lunch fifty times or more leading up to that day. And the mom who was with her on the field trip said that she was super excited about each new item she pulled out of her bag. And she spent twenty minutes the day before decorating the sack with flowers and spirals. Have I previously deprived my kid for her to be so excited about something so small?

Europe Pictures

We found a park by the Eiffel Tower!

A beautiful day to walk by the Eiffel Tower.

Cute niece and nephew in a castle in the German countryside.

The castle they loved to explore.

The land of my ancestors in France.  So beautiful!

Strasbourg Cathedral, maybe the most beautiful I've seen, with the best church bells. It used to be the tallest building in the world.

Inside of Strasbourg Cathedral.

Stained glass that my ancestors may or may not have helped make.

Lauterbrunnen Valley, Switzerland. Possibly the most beautiful place on earth. (No offense, Teton Valley.)

Our hotel up on the mountain overlooking Lauterbrunnen.

Happy to be in Switzerland.

I LOVE Lucerne, Switzerland!

Liechtenstein Castle. The billionaire prince lives here.

A church in Liechtenstein. My favorite picture that Bill took.

Princess and the Frog statue at the Imperial Gardens in Innsbruck, Austria.

Cute people by a GIGANTIC tree in the Imperial Gardens.

A couple of guys, who were up to no good, started making trouble in the neighborhood...

More cute people in Innsbruck, at the castle. (My brother, his wife, and their youngest baby.)

Salzburg Castle, on the way up a super steep hike to get there.

Salzburg is so beautiful!

A view from the top.

Mozart played here!

Mirabell Gardens in Salzburg.

Mirabell Gardens

Mirabell Gardens. 

Cute people in Salzburg. Bad photographer, though.

Can you see why Indian and Asian people kept wanting pictures with these girls?

Heidelburg, Germany. A view from the castle.

Kissing Cousins

Girl Cousins, born eight days apart, all ready for church.

Levi with "Cat", the tiger Preston gave him for Christmas.

The Astronomical Clock in Prague.

Prague is so beautiful. It would be even better if it was also clean.

Big Trouble in Little Diapers

We are in big trouble at our house.  We have a little one who likes to roll across the room already.  I wasn't ready for this.  She's not even five months old yet!  Our house is almost always messy lately, and I'm a little worried about what is going to go into her mouth.  And we haven't gotten a new baby gate, so that's on the to do list for tomorrow.  And I can't just keep the whole floor covered in blankets and towels to catch all the drool and spit-up, so once she's off the blanket, we're pretty much out of luck.  It's a good thing carpet cleaners exist.  Now, to find a good one to buy.

Here is a story from Preston, who likes to sign his papers at school, "Presty."  He told me to type everything he said.

Once upon a time, there was a crazy mama.  I changed it to a crazy baby.  The crazy baby liked to jump a lot and smile.  The crazy baby can fly.  It's mama loves when it doesn't be crazy.  Wait, does this make sense?  Oh yeah.  So the crazy baby's name was Sadie.  And so the crazy baby went to the mama, but don't put a period.  But why are you writing, "but don't put a period?"  Hahahahaha.  And the crazy baby jumped, wait, change that to fly-ed.  Ugh.  So the crazy baby was carrying the mama into the sky.  And the crazy baby is crying now.  So, I don't know what to write next.  Wait, don't write that!  And the crazy baby had a toy.  The toy was a dog.  The toy dog was magic.  It can turn into a real dog.  Okay, let me think.  (Hitting his head, trying to think.)  The dog turned the crazy baby not into a crazy one.  So, here's what happened.  I'M STILL CRAZY!!!!!!  And the mama was like, "Oh my!  Oh my!  This is a bad baby.  My baby is SUPER crazy!!!!"  And there was a daddy, too.  And the baby took the dad on a ride in the sky, chirping like a bird.  I'm trying to make my story super silly.  Why are you writing every word I say?  Because I'm, um, CRAZY?!!!  The daddy did not like the flight.  He thought she was SUPER BABY!  Her spit-up looked like bird poop.  Hee hee hee hee hee.  You wrote poop.  The End.

We have been without much furniture in our upstairs family room since Thanksgiving, when we moved everything downstairs.  I am hoping that we find something soon.  A small love-seat and two chairs do not seat our whole family.  And the love-seat does not promote any actual love in our house, just fighting over who gets to sit there.

Europe was fun.  I only gained one or two pounds this time, so that's good.  Sadie had serious jet lag when we came home.  A full week of her waking up at 4 am was not fun.  And I don't know why our pastries have to be way grosser than European pastries, especially French pastries.  Same with our chocolate.  We need our chocolatiers to study with Swiss chocolatiers.  Nobody ever says, "I went to America, and I brought you back some chocolate."  There is a reason for that!  (Although I am excluding Reese's in this conversation about gross American chocolate.  I would eat them any time of day if they wouldn't kill me.)  Also, Swiss Fondue is not worth 108 euros!  But when it's your only choice because you accidentally booked a hotel that was only accessible by a tram and a mountain train, then at least you can experience the real thing.  Because it would cost that much just to get down to the valley and back, and it's still AWESOME to eat Swiss Fondue in the Swiss Alps.  And to eat Schnitzel in Germany, in a castle on a hill.  And some delicious hashbrown cheesy tomato dish in Liechtenstein.  And a GIANT chocolate covered pretzel in Salzburg.  And really good Italian food in every city we were in, even though we didn't go to Italy.  It is NOT awesome to change a poopy diaper in Munich, or every single other city that we went to.  Stupid exploding poop diapers.  Bill threw away three really cute baby outfits in various trashcans in Europe.  And now she's back to normal poop every few days that doesn't leak.  Or maybe that's the Costco diapers she finally grew into.  And if I accidentally broke a vase in a little church while we were trying to do some family history in a little village in France and nobody heard it, did it really break?  Did it really?

So, Bill has told me a few times that when I sell my first book, I can buy whatever mattress I want, even a really expensive one.  I had a dream last night that I found a rare diamond and that if I could get to Cartier in London, they would buy it from me, but we were in some shopping mall in Prague, where pickpockets kept trying to steal it from me, and I just wanted to sell it for enough money that I could get a new Intelli-Gel mattress, the most expensive one, of course.  I think I should get writing if I am so uncomfortable that I am even aware of it in my dreams.  And why does everybody say uncomfortable like "uncomfterble"?  I do it too, sometimes, and it drives me crazy!